Dear reader,
Here I am with the second newsletter and nice to have you here :) It’s the second month of the new year and I finally got some downtime today to pen down the newsletter for this month. I have been marinating with a thought inside of me for quite a bit while I was trying to come up with the theme for this month which eventually led me down a rabbit hole of social scientists and human biologists.
When life took the most necessitated nuanced pause in the year that went by, it had a lot to offer to me especially in the areas of self-introspection! 2020 marked the end and the beginning of a new decade and much like everyone else, I involuntarily started to assess the growth of my ‘self’ through the ages.
Self-improvement has become a Gen X word but the concept of growth is as abstract as it can be (Few more reasons why most, if not all, of those self-improvement sessions are a capitalist scam!). While I don’t necessarily mean to raise a campaign against counseling and therapy, I believe that with the years tailing behind us, we sometimes forget to see how far we have come!
As kids, we were celebrated for the first time we learned to say a word, learned to walk, hold a spoon, etc., incidents that took primary focus and became moments of celebratory success. But somehow as the years go forward, we have lost that need to notice those small but meaningful changes in ourselves. The ‘invisible growth’, the not-so-tangible growth, and the ones that are the most minuscule yet fulfilling get lost in the blur.
This extends to both physical as well as mental realms, both of which are equally impossible to measure. The human experience is sometimes marked in distinct moments which can be accessed through our memory files or sometimes through tangible proofs like photographs or souvenirs. But, what of those that are not so clear-cut and straightforward? The exact point in time when the stuff that bothered us no longer affects us anymore? That first grey hair? The exact day you started to look different from who you were five years ago?
Aging as you can see takes on a refined meaning if you look at this through this lens. This experiment has often led me to instances of paramount personal growth for me but due to the lack of tangible evidence, it was largely brushed underneath the carpet.
So owing to a dire need to reinvent things, I started to develop a system for myself to keep a tab on all the seemingly irrelevant milestones that I crossed every day! Moving past the ‘10/20/30 milestones to cross before you turn *this age*’ click baits, I started to record the every day wins in a small notebook of mine. Did I plant a succulent and kept it alive for 30 days? Big win! Did I move past a triggering comment and not look back? Woohoo! And the list kept adding on.
Lest we mistake this for an overestimated self, this list in hindsight only helped me understand how much these changes do matter even if they seemed silly at first. We are all one big work-in-progress and as much as we like to acknowledge it or not, there is some progress happening every day. So in an earnest attempt to leave a piece of my learning here, I would like you, my dear reader, to start a milestone list for yourself and start putting in all the small big mediocre milestones that you cross; you would be surprised to see how much we have changed over the course of a day/ days.
Poetry Corner
Artwork by Kitti Narod
It is the month of February and I went down memory lane to recall some of the most amazing poems I have ever read on love.
‘When Love Arrives’ is a spoken word poetry performance by Phil Kaye and Sarah Kay at the Inner-City Arts in Los Angeles undertaken by the poetry slam organization Button Poetry.
The poem revolves around the constant ways in which ‘love’ as we perceive it, evolves throughout your lifetime. Performed with such poise and grace, it is one of my very first spoken word poetry hearings and one that stays in the top five favorites of all times.
Here are some of my favorite lines:
Maybe Love stays. Maybe Love can’t. Maybe Love shouldn’t.
Love arrives exactly when Love is supposed to and Love leaves exactly when Love must.
When Love arrives, say, “Welcome. Make yourself comfortable.”
If Love leaves, ask her to leave the door open behind her.
Turn off the music. Listen to the quiet.
Whisper, “Thank you for stopping by.”
If you would like to read the complete transcript, click here.
Phil and Sarah run an organization called Project Voice where they conduct poetry workshops and also run performances all over the world. I have enjoyed a lot of their performances but here are their individual TED Talks/ performances for your viewing pleasure -
Sarah Kay - If I Should Have A Daughter, a wonderful performance of poetry at one of the TED events that won two standing ovations.
Phil Kaye: Poetry In Maximum Security Prison
Here’s another poem along the same theme that I loved reading:
Artwork by Linda Christensen
I watched the glory of her childhood change,
Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,
(Loved long ago in lily-time),
Become a maid, mysterious and strange,
With fair, pure eyes - dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew
Of old, in the olden time!
Till on my doubting soul the ancient good
Of her dear childhood in the new disguise
Dawned, and I hastened to adore
The glory of her waking maidenhead,
And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,
But kinder than before.
Recommended Links For The Month:
Recommended Viewing
Atypical is a refreshing series that throws light on the lives and the families of kids on the autism spectrum. Though the series was called out for not being truly representative, it is definitely worth watching once.
If period dramas are your jam, here is the latest production of the great Shakespearean drama Hamlet.
The Walk is an American 3D biographical drama film based on the story of 24-year-old French high-wire artist Philippe Petit's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974. This particular episode from the entire movie stands out for the amazing production value - from the music to the complete shot to the dialogues.
Recommended Reading
The book of the month would be Reasons To Stay Alive by novelist Matt Haig. Here, the author uses his personal experience of living with depression to give a deep insight into this mental illness and how he overcame it. Funny, witty, and fast-paced narration makes this for one fantastic informative read while not completely boring the reader!
Recommended Subscribing
This month’s pick for newsletter subscription would be The Alipore Post. Curated by Rohini Kejriwal, her’s is one of the most awaited newsletters I look forward to every week. They come loaded with spectacular art, poetry, and links for reading and listening. You can check out the website here for a hefty dosage of everything I mentioned.
Unwanted Trivia
I received some heartwarming responses for the last edition of the newsletter with special emphasis for this section so here goes. Quirky, weird days in a year you didn’t know existed:
February
22nd Feb: Single Tasking Day/ Be Humble Day
27th Feb: No Brainer Day
28th Feb: Public Sleeping Day
March
1st Mar: World Compliment Day
4th Mar: March Forth And Do Something Day
5th Mar: Learn What Your Name Means Day
15th Mar: Napping Day
16th Mar: Everything You Do Is Right Day
And that would mark the end of this newsletter. I haven’t been able to make this newsletter as explicit as the first one since I was caught up in-between stuff but do be on the lookout for the next one :)
Since I wrote a lot of introspection and self-awareness, here’s a question for you:
Do you ever stop to ask yourself - ‘What do I like about myself?’
This question was recently put forth to me in a brainstorming session with a close peer group where we each had to speak gallantly about the things we liked about ourselves. You can imagine how it must have felt being put on the spot but the message remained clear: while we are so focused on the things that need the ‘work’, did we stop to appreciate the parts of ourselves that we liked? Did we acknowledge it with humility?
As always, I look forward to your reply. You can reply to this mail and type in your replies :) I may quote you in the next newsletter!
A few of you replied to my previous question on the one word to describe 2020. But the one that stood out to me was:
Hope you enjoy working your way through the links here. Catch you all real soon in another brand new newsletter!
Much love,
Pavithraa
P.S: If you missed the previous newsletter, you can access it here. Also, a gentle reminder to clear your emails regularly! :)
My bad that I couldn't reply to the previous newsletter. Hopefully, I'll write a detailed reply for this one. Though I didn't come up with a word for my 2020, REDEMPTION it was, for me too. :)